116 Hospital Street is a substantial townhouse in Nantwich

Nantwich

Nantwich is a market town and civil parish in the Borough of Cheshire East and the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The town gives its name to the parliamentary constituency of Crewe and Nantwich...

, Cheshire

Cheshire

Cheshire is a ceremonial county in North West England. Cheshire's county town is the city of Chester, although its largest town is Warrington. Other major towns include Widnes, Congleton, Crewe, Ellesmere Port, Runcorn, Macclesfield, Winsford, Northwich, and Wilmslow...

, England, located on the south side of Hospital Street (at ). It is listed at grade II. The present building, of Georgian

Georgian architecture

Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 appearance, incorporates an earlier timber-framed

Timber framing

Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 house, which probably dates in part from the 15th century. Local historian Jane Stevenson calls it "the most interesting house in Hospital Street", and considers it might be "the oldest surviving residence in Nantwich."

Number 116 is one of a group of houses dating originally from the 15th and 16th centuries at the end of Hospital Street, which include Churche's Mansion

Churche's Mansion

Churche's Mansion is a timber-framed, black-and-white Elizabethan mansion house at the eastern end of Hospital Street in Nantwich, Cheshire, England...

, numbers 140–142

140–142 Hospital Street, Nantwich

140–142 Hospital Street, sometimes known as Hospital House, is a substantial townhouse in Nantwich, Cheshire, England, located on the south side of Hospital Street . The building is listed at grade II. It was built in the late 16th century by John Crewe, a tanner, whose sons Randolph and Thomas...

 and The Rookery

The Rookery, Nantwich

The Rookery, or 125 Hospital Street, is a substantial Georgian townhouse in Nantwich, Cheshire, England. It is located at the end of Hospital Street, on the north side, at the junction with Millstone Lane . The existing building dates from the mid 18th century and is listed at grade II; English...

 (number 125). These buildings survived the fire of 1583, which destroyed the town end of Hospital Street together with much of the centre of Nantwich. Number 116 is believed to stand near the site of the medieval Hospital of St Nicholas

Hospital of St Nicholas, Nantwich

The Hospital of St Nicholas was a medieval hospital for travellers, which gave its name to Hospital Street in the English town of Nantwich in Cheshire...

, which gives Hospital Street its name.

Description

Number 116 is a large two-storey building with painted cement rendering

Stucco

Stucco or render is a material made of an aggregate, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as decorative coating for walls and ceilings and as a sculptural and artistic material in architecture...

 under a tiled roof. The Hospital Street façade has two shallow projecting end wings with hip end

Hip roof

A hip roof, or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus it is a house with no gables or other vertical sides to the roof. A square hip roof is shaped like a pyramid. Hip roofs on the houses could have two triangular side...

s projecting from the main roof. The central entrance is flanked by wooden columns and has a semicircular fanlight

Fanlight

A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...

 with a pediment

Pediment

A pediment is a classical architectural element consisting of the triangular section found above the horizontal structure , typically supported by columns. The gable end of the pediment is surrounded by the cornice moulding...

 above. There are four casement windows to both ground and first floors, which date from the late 19th century. When the building was listed in 1974, there was an additional doorway in the left-hand (east) wing, which was blocked in the early 21st century. The façade is of Georgian

Georgian architecture

Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1720 and 1840. It is eponymous for the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I of Great Britain, George II of Great Britain, George III of the United...

 appearance; English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 dates it as early 18th century although "much altered", while local historian Jeremy Lake considers it to be late Georgian.

The existing building incorporates a much earlier timber-framed

Timber framing

Timber framing , or half-timbering, also called in North America "post-and-beam" construction, is the method of creating structures using heavy squared off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs . It is commonplace in large barns...

 structure on a medieval plan, with a central hall and flanking wings. The parlour wing has been dated by Lake as probably late 15th century. This date would place it among the earliest remaining buildings in Nantwich, apart from the 14th-century parish church

St Mary's Church, Nantwich

St Mary's Church, Nantwich, is in the centre of the market town of Nantwich, Cheshire, England. The church has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. It has been called the "Cathedral of South Cheshire" and it is considered by some to be one of the finest medieval...

, and Stevenson considers it might be the oldest residential building in the town. The hall and service block, which date from the mid-to-late 17th century, probably replace earlier structures.

The interior of the parlour wing contains old chimneys and sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized minerals or rock grains.Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any colour, but the most common colours are tan, brown, yellow,...

 fireplaces of 15th-century design. The fireplace in the south chamber of the parlour wing is particularly fine, according to Lake. There is an intact roof truss

Truss

In architecture and structural engineering, a truss is a structure comprising one or more triangular units constructed with straight members whose ends are connected at joints referred to as nodes. External forces and reactions to those forces are considered to act only at the nodes and result in...

, and the main roof timbers meet vertically underneath the roof purlin

Purlin

In architecture or structural engineering or building, a purlin is a horizontal structural member in a roof. Purlins support the loads from the roof deck or sheathing and are supported by the principal rafters and/or the building walls, steel beams etc...

, which Lake considers characteristic of Cheshire timber framing of the 15th century. Traces of internal decoration survive, with red ochre

Ochre

Ochre is the term for both a golden-yellow or light yellow brown color and for a form of earth pigment which produces the color. The pigment can also be used to create a reddish tint known as "red ochre". The more rarely used terms "purple ochre" and "brown ochre" also exist for variant hues...

 on the roof timbers contrasting with white limewash

Whitewash

Whitewash, or calcimine, kalsomine, calsomine, or lime paint is a very low-cost type of paint made from slaked lime and chalk . Various other additives are also used...

 on the wattle and daub

Wattle and daub

Wattle and daub is a composite building material used for making walls, in which a woven lattice of wooden strips called wattle is daubed with a sticky material usually made of some combination of wet soil, clay, sand, animal dung and straw...

panels of the roof truss.

Sources

• Hall J. A History of the Town and Parish of Nantwich, or Wich Malbank, in the County Palatine of Chester (2nd edn) (E. J. Morten; 1972) (ISBN 0-901598-24-0)
• Lake J. The Great Fire of Nantwich (Shiva Publishing; 1983) (ISBN 0-906812-57-7)
• Stevenson P. J. Nantwich: A Brief History and Guide (1994)